I sure love living on a boat...

We were pretty sure that there would be no traveling today and, being as beat up as we were, we made no effort to get up and get going at first light. As I walked down the dock to the public head I got to looking at the sky. It was grey with a cloud train flowing right along the river, maybe a couple of thousand feet in the air, and in the same direction as we would be going if we left. Mmm...cloud trains usually mean some weather is inbound. But the direction of the wind wouldn't be a bad point of sail. If we didn't plan to go too far?

The dock at Little Current with a very large tow/barge going by.

 

When I got back to the boat, Deb was pouring over the weather forecasts including Windy, Pocket Gribs, and Weather Mate. Though they didn't align perfectly they all suggested that the rain showers wouldn't arrive for at least another four hours and any thunderstorms would be tomorrow's problem. The King's Point anchorage was 3+30 and 23.3 miles further along than where we were. It would be well protected from the incoming weather. Perhaps even better than the dock we were on. She suggested we think about going. I suggested we go. We have the departure routine down pat and First Light was pulling away from the wall a few minutes before 0800.

The ride was exactly what I expected it to be given the cloud train. Not perfect but smooth enough that the autopilot handled about half of the trip. It was cloudy with showers around. One caught up with us just as we entered the narrowest channel of the trip, which was about 0.75 NM from the anchorage. Not hard rain, just enough to be annoying. And it arrived without any wind. Out of the channel we made the 180 turn around King Point and into Cameron Bight. I slowed to a bare crawl into the Bight with Deb standing watch at the bow.

The information we had was that the sounding was questionable and there was the possibility of unmarked rocks. (Yes, she was out in the rain while I was up in the flybridge. But the canvas on our flybridge leaks like a screen. I got nearly as wet.)

We didn't see, or bump into, any unmarked rocks, though there were a couple that we avoided. We coasted about two thirds of the way in, dropped the hook, set it as hard as we could, and put out enough rode for the expected winds. It is likely we will not feel the winds much. There is only a single narrow slot of open water with nothing blocking the wind,  and it lay on a heading nearly 180 degrees from where the hardest winds are forecasted to blow.

We are the only boat here. The rain is now steady and the visibility maybe a fuzzy mile or so. All indications are that we are the only boat within miles of here. Unless someone shows up in the next couple of hours, I suspect we will be the only boat here for however long it takes for the weather to pass. That looks like Monday at the earliest, more likely Tuesday. But today is now a travel day rather than a sitting day. And where we ended up sitting is both a very pretty place and isn't costing us any doubloons. Something that is hard to accomplish in today's world... unless you happen to love living on a boat.

 

It was just what I needed to get over the slog that was yesterday's living on a boat. 

0400 on a wind blown anchorage

Kintala motored into Boot Harbor Key two days later than planned which, for a sailboat, is right on time - even a bit early. Winds and waves kept us pinned in Rodriguez Key longer than anticipated, with the third night being a bit of a trial. That afternoon the winds had actually died away, though it was too late to try and make Boot Key. I started looking forward to a good night's sleep and an easy motor / motor sail the next day. But as the sun went down the winds came back, moaning through the rigging, stirring up the bay, setting the v-berth to pitching and rocking once again, and blowing away any chance of sleep for the third night in a row. By 0400 in the morning jumping overboard and swimming to shore started to sound like the best idea I had had in a while.

Sunrise leaving Rodriguez Key

Exhausted, sleep finely won out just as the sun came up. The wind was still hovering around 20 knots but it would be a near beam reach in a following sea. Deb went about doing the engine checks and prepping the inside of the boat, letting me sleep as long as she could. But around 0730 she had to roust me out, not an enviable task. Bleary eyed and fuzzy headed, I stumbled out to the still rocking and pitching deck to get the boat ready to make sail - a task repeated so many times over the last few years that I can, as the saying goes, “Do it in my sleep.” Getting the anchor up was a different song and dance, given we were riding hard against the snubber and pitching just short of putting the bow under water. Still, all fingers and toes were accounted for when the anchor was up, pinned, cabled and tied.



A few minutes later the bow swung to the south west, the point of sail being just forward of a beam reach. The big jib spun out cleanly, the Beast was given a break, and ye ol' Tartan slipped through the waves at better than 5 knots. Staying on board at 0400 started to seem like a good choice after all.

A couple of hours later the speed slipped with the winds finally starting to fade a little. The main sail went up, still with two reefs, enough to bring the speed back up as well. A little later the wind faded some more and we shook the reefs out of the main. A little later still, a little less wind, we added the staysail to the mix. For the first time in a while, Kintala was making way flying everything. It was grand; staying on board at 0400 was definitely the better choice.

Of course it couldn't last. About half way through the 50 mile run the white caps disappeared off the waves, the seas flattened out, the speed fell off, and the sails started to slat. As nice as the sail had been, it was equally as nice when the jib and staysail rolled in smooth and clean, nary a drama or a snag. We left the main up mostly for show, and motored along.

An hour or so before dark we raised the entry to Boot Key Harbor. The main sail dropped into the lazy jacks with a pretty good flake, making it 3 for 3 in sail management for the day. That sounds like a minor thing, but it offers some hope that our recent run of difficulties doing that thing most basic to sailing, i.e. putting up and taking down sails, may be in the past. Some hardware changes and using different techniques have, hopefully, put those things behind us. One of the projects for this summer will be to change some of the running rigging and modify the lazy jacks, with the intent of excising the last of our sail handling gremlins.

The moorings at Boot Key Harbor

Since we were planning to take a bus down to Key West for a day, and the winds are forecast to be in the 30s, we called the marina on the off chance they might have a mooring available. Amazingly enough they did, even one with an easy approach. We motored in and picked up the ball just like we knew what we were doing.

This is the first time we have been on a mooring in Boot Key, and the difference between being anchored out while here and now on a ball has been a bit of a surprise. With easy access to the marina being included in the fee, we head to shore every day. With all the boats around us also on a mooring ball, when the wind blows in the middle of the night we worry less about other boats getting free and running us down. Inside the harbor as we are, even with the winds howling, the ride is calm and sleep easy to find.

The cost isn't insignificant. In addition to the mooring fee itself, easy access to land means easy access to restaurants and ground transportation. We have spent nearly as much money “eating out” in the days we have been here as we did on food the entire time we were in the islands. For budget cruisers that is startling.

We have made some new friends who stopped by the boat because they saw “St. Louis, MO” on our stern. But the fact is, being on shore everyday, makes it so much easier to make connections to the tribe. Casual conversations are normally not so casual between boats that are anchored. There is a kind of perceived aura around an anchored boat, one that – often quite properly – suggests “strangers not welcome." Sitting in the cockpit and waving or nodding at those who pass by helps, but there is no getting around that deep in most cruiser souls is a streak of “loner”. We are different than those who live on land, and outnumbered millions and millions to one. We are loners almost by definition.

Yet, on the other hand, I have softened my inner, puritan voice, the one that whispers that true cruisers anchor out whenever they can. I don't know that I'll ever be of the group that goes from dock to dock, but that may be more an economic necessity than a choice of lifestyle. When I can spare the dollars, a mooring ball or occasional dock visit is a different kind of cruising, with pluses (and minuses) of its own.

One of which might be fewer times of thinking of jumping off the boat at 0400 on a windy morning.

 One of the anchorages in Key West

 A public beach in Key West

 A historical church in Key West on Duval Street

 Florida has some of the most amazing trees. Some of them are really wrinkly like this one.

 The southern most point in the US. The line was 3  blocks long to take

your picture there so we skipped that.

 The Strand theater opened in 1920 and now houses, unfortunately, a Walgreens store.

 Old friends Carolyn and Dave of Boat Galley fame and new friends Diana and John of S/V Joy

enjoying the good eats at Burdines in Boot Key Harbor

A perfect rainbow this morning

Second thoughts

So here we sit, as snug as the proverbial bug, nestled into the proverbial rug. Off our bow is 65 pounds worth of Mantus set hard in the bottom mud. Between it and the boat lay 80 feet of chain, snubbed by two 15 foot lengths of 5/8s 3 strand, properly protected from chafe. With a cold front in the offering we would have laid out 100 feet of chain, but No Name is a tight and crowded anchorage where thought must be given to swing room, with several other members of the cruising tribe sitting nearby.

This afternoon, while the crew of Kintala enjoyed some time on shore with friends from Skimmer, and visited new friends who showed us around their trawler, a really new looking Island Packet dropped anchor just off our port side and slightly behind us. We didn't see them come in, didn't talk to them, and never really thought much about them. They were big boys on their big boat and not upwind of us. The only concern was that they had given us enough room to swing past their bow. The front would pass with the winds clocking from south to north-north-west, twisting every boat in the harbor clockwise. Watching the radar this afternoon I expected a rather easy passage, but a pretty quick swinging of the winds. It would bear watching.

And so it was. Late evening the rains started and we closed up the boat. The rains got harder, the wind moaned in the stays, and the boat started to swing and sway as the confused gusts that come with a front swirled around. Looking out the port side ports it wasn't at all clear that we had the room we needed to have our stern clear the Packet's bow. Grabbing foulies I headed outside in the driving rain in case we needed to motor ahead a bit. Kintala swayed some more and started to swing quickly in a text-book frontal passage wind shift; fully 180 degrees in about a minute. I couldn't have turned her that fast using the engine.

As we swung it was clear that we were going to have plenty of room forward of the Island Packet. In fact there was way more room than expected. Indeed, there was way more room than there should have been. It was a bit confusing. (For those of you who haven't ridden out a cold front passage in a crowded anchorage, confusing is often the name of the game. Visibility is poor in heavy rain, it is normally dark, boat lights and background shore lights easily lead to illusions of motion that are not really there, and distances can be near impossible to judge. All it all it can add up to a few moments of shear excitement.)

As every other boat in the anchorage started the swing to the west and then north, the Island Packet stayed facing south. And that is when I realized they had drug away from us and fetched up against the mangroves and shallow water at the edge of No Name Harbor. No wonder there was so much room.

The rain faded away quickly. The maximum winds were probably less than 40 knots. Just about a non-event compared to what we have come to expect. Yet, somehow, that big old boat had dragged merrily away. A couple of us shone spotlights at the ports trying to get the crew's attention. Two from a nearby boat launched their dink and rowed over to tap on the hull. After a minute or two the Island Packet crew came up from below, having been totally unaware of their short drift into the trees. A couple of minutes later enthusiastic use of the bow thruster pivoted them off the shallow spot, they motored close past our starboard side.

“Any damage?” Deb asked as they went by.

“No,” came the reply, which was good to hear.

“How much scope did you have out?”

(Here I must digress for a moment. Deb is the scope scoping-out master. 5:1 makes her very unhappy. Less than 4:1 will simply never do. 8:1 is fine, 10:1 is better.)

“I don't understand what happened. We had 30 feet out”.

Thirty feet! That is less than a boat length. We use more than 30 feet of line to tie Kintala to a dock. How in the name of all that is wet and salty does the crew of a Island Packet 40+ footer think that 30 feet of scope will hold in anything more than a gentle breeze? It can't be possible that they knew nothing of the impending weather. It is even less possible that they knew of the impending weather and thought 30 feet of scope would do. That they were alongside and slightly behind us, and not upwind, is our good luck break of the month; maybe the year so far.

They stopped about a boat length off our bow, where I gently informed them that was no place to drop a hook. I suggested they move out by the inlet, set the anchor, and let out about 100 feet of chain. (Several boats left this morning to head to the Islands. We had moved Kintala well into the harbor in deference to the coming weather, leaving plenty of room at the far end for wayward Island Packets.)

The Island Packet is gone and hopefully set secure, far away from us. But we have learned via the grape vine that the sailboat now upwind of us, a monstrous looking thing with a massive amount of freeboard and a giant pilot house, has a broken windlass...and is riding to 60 feet of rode.

I sure hope the wind doesn't blow very hard tonight. And I am having second thoughts about some of the members of the tribe.

Mountains

Kintala has been sitting at her anchor for several weeks. There are a half dozen other boats scattered around, also riding to their anchors. It is a big anchorage so the boats are not all that close together. Still, there is no missing the fact that it is an anchorage.

It is a breezy day, winds solid in the low teens with gusts above 20. It is also overcast and gray with cool temperatures and rain closing in. It has rained a lot since we have been here. There are friends here with us now, friends we may not see again for a long time. Soon we will be heading north for a week's visit with Daughter Middle and Grand Kids Five. With them will be Son-in-Law and his folks, who are good friends that we miss as well. All in all good reasons to have been in Stuart for lo these many days.

Still, I must admit to being a bit restless. This is not my favorite anchorage. The water isn't very clear. The weather has been less than stellar. Last night was yet another where much sleep was lost to blowing winds causing the boat to slew around and pull hard on the anchor snubber, which provokes loud moans of protest that echo through the v-berth. There is very little wildlife; a stray dolphin once in a while and a few birds is about it. There are train noises and bridge noises and sirens, power boat wakes, jet ski antics and, today, a crazed fisherman.

As mentioned, Kintala's deck monkey has been feeling a bit confined. So early this afternoon, trying to fend off a growing boredom coupled with a bit of a headache due to too little sleep and too much motion, I settled onto the settee and popped a newly acquired CD of ALIEN into the Dell's drive. Just as crewman Cane was sitting down to his last meal a loud “clunk” shuddered through Kintala's hull and past my ear buds. (The Admiral, also boat bound, does not care for ALIEN.)

"What the hell was that?”

It didn't sound particularly destructive so I hit the “pause” button before scurrying up the companionway. And there, drifting inches from our port bow, was the pontoon boat that had just bounced off of us. In its bow (Front?) stood the only occupant, fishing pole still in hand. What the hell?

"Sorry, I am trying to land this fish.”

Trying to land a fish? The wind is blowing to 20 knots and this wanker drifted through an obvious anchorage and whacked into a 42 foot sailboat because he was trying to land a fish? If the fool hadn't been standing just feet from me, still wrestling with his line, I would not have believed anyone claiming to be that stupid.

"I didn't do any damage.”

This he offered now drifting away from our stern on a course directly at the boat anchored down wind of us. He would have made it two for two if Deb had not pointed it out to him. Me? I was still muttering something along the lines of, “You bounced your 'tuner boat off my anchored hull in 20 knots worth of wind while trying to catch a fish?”

Now I wouldn't want to disparage all fishermen. My Grandfather was an avid fisherman. So was my Father-in-Law, who was also one of my favorite people as well as being a Dean at Pittsburgh University's school of Electrical Engineering. So I know, as a rule, fisherman have an IQ much higher than that of the wet, wiggling things they are trying to catch. But today the exception that makes the rule was out, unsupervised, blundering around the St. Lucie river, and clearly off his meds. (Or on the sauce, not sure which.)

Pole still in hand he fired up his outboard and moved just far enough across the wind to miss the second boat. Then he shut down and went back to his Santiago-like tussle with his marlin-like fish. In his misfiring mind he must have thought he had a catch worthy of Hemingway on his line, right? One would have to be an epic kind of crazy to bounce off of anchored boats just to land a six inch perch. By this time I had shaken out of my daze. Deb jotted down the boats registration number just in case we need to track down an insurance company, then watched through binoculars as he drifted clear of the anchorage and out into the channel standing, once again, at the bow. Boats went by him, port and starboard, completely unheeded.

It is my experience that most displays of pure idiocy (not counting Presidential elections) are short-lived. This guy though, was clearly in a class of crazy all of his own. After bouncing off of us and just missing a second anchored boat, it took nearly another 20 minutes of drifting through a busy channel for his catch of a lifetime to spit his hook and swim away. (Or maybe a shark ate it.) Then, amazingly, he motored back toward Kintala.

"Sorry about that,” he said as he got closer. “The fish took a turn on me. Shit happens.”

The fish took a turn? Shit happens? What? Am I supposed to think the fish pulled his boat into mine? That it was, you know, just one of those things that could happen to anyone. What color is the sky in the world this guy inhabits, and how did I get dragged into it? But it got even better when I asked for his name and phone number.

I am Dr... phone number...

Doctor? This lunatic is a Doctor? I ended up just staring at him, defeated. Before me was a mountain of inanity so massive as to be beyond my verbal climbing abilities. Clearly, nothing I could say would ever penetrate a skull so thick. Sixty plus years I have walked the planet, spared, fought with, insulted, been insulted by, and traded barbs with knaves, fools, imbeciles, and rouges, only to be rendered speechless by a Doctor who crashed his 'tuner into me because he was trying to land lunch. I may never recover.

I went below and returned to the much more rational universe of a nearly naked Ripley crawling into a spacesuit to blow an acid dripping alien out an airlock.

Anchor Management

(Ed note: This is a long post and may bore those of you who are accomplished, experienced cruisers.)

I've avoided posts on anchoring because, let's face it, there is an over-abundance of information on it out there as well as an abundance of MIS-information. In addition, we've only been cruising for a little over two years and it seemed there were many more experienced people out there to offer advice. Then there's the fact that NO topic yields more ridiculous hot-headed argument in sailing and cruising forums than anchoring. But, after having shared with a good friend our method of anchoring, I was asked to do a post to share it with others, so share it I will. Use it or discard it as you see fit.

When getting ready to leave for full-time cruising, we did due diligence on the whole anchoring issue. We read all the chapters in the most well-known cruising how-to books, we read the advertising promo on all of the anchor manufacturer websites, we scoured the vendor aisles of boat shows and we talked to tons of people. We had an oversized CQR (39# on a 27' boat) on our first boat, Nomad, which seemed to do well on the lake in the muddy bottom. Kintala came with a not-oversized CQR, which also seemed to do OK on the lake, although we did drag once while we had a half dozen boats rafted up to us. Knowing we were going to be in much rougher waters and many different bottom types, we began the search for a good cruising anchor to replace it.

I'm not exactly sure how we found out about the Mantus anchor initially, but after researching the details, it seemed like a good choice. It was robust, it had great reviews and, most importantly, it was affordable which allowed us to purchase a size larger than the recommended size.

The Mantus after installation with Kintala still on the hard.

I remember the day the Mantus 65 was delivered to Tradewinds Marina where we had the boat on the hard getting her ready for the truck voyage to Oak Harbor. I believe the words out of Tim's mouth when he saw the box were, "Are you kidding me?" He grumbled through the whole assembly. He grumbled through the mounting. He still grumbles through every morning of pulling it up, but not because it's a bad anchor or because he doesn't want it, only because he doesn't have a shiny electric windlass to pull it up with. The Mantus anchor was one of the few major purchasing decisions that I got right. And so very right it is.

One of the things that few people realize about anchoring is the fact that only half of it is technique. The other half is the anchor itself. While I firmly believe that every single boat out there should have a new generation anchor of some sort (Mantus, Rocna, or similar), many of the other anchors will do just fine if they are sufficiently oversized. And this we found out our first trip over to the Bahamas. So point one:  

Buy the absolute biggest anchor that your bow roller / windlass / back / biceps / budget can handle.

Learning to sail on a rural lake in Illinois never afforded us the opportunity to actually see our anchor on the bottom, in spite of the fact that the water in Carlyle Lake was rarely more than 8' deep. The lake was a runoff of local farm land and, as a result, was filled with sediment and the byproduct of our modern chemical fertilization methods, not to mention the somewhat less offensive byproduct of the cattle. It wasn't until we reached Elliott Key in Biscayne Bay that we even saw the anchor at all, and that was just barely. When we crossed to the Bahamas early in 2014 and began our trek across the Abacos, it was an epiphany. We had an anchor! We could actually see it on the bottom through clear water!

A well set anchor in sandy bottom

After traveling across the northern Abacos and anchoring in the anchorage just outside Green Turtle Cay, my curiosity got the best of me. I had been listening to anchoring gurus tell me that I needed to back down on the anchor to set it, and I began to wonder how many RPMs it really takes to stretch 75 or 80 feet of chain out fully extended. I wanted to be sure that I had been applying sufficient power. In this anchorage we had laid out 75 feet of chain, backing slowly as we released it so we didn't pile up the chain, then backing on it to set it. After completing this, our standard procedure, I talked Tim into donning his snorkle equipment and swimming out to a position directly over the anchor to do a small test.

We had agreed on some hand signals, him telling me to back down until he could see that the chain was fully extended, and then I would apply power to set it. He motioned me to back and I did. After a few moments his hand signal to back became more vigorous. I backed harder. Another moment and his head popped up out of the water and he shouted, "Are you backing?? Because nothing is happening. The chain is not moving." I had been using nearly 2000 RPM and was unable to even move the accumulate length of chain from its position in the sand where we had dropped it. I revved the Westerbeast to 2500 RPM. Still no movement in the chain by the anchor.  We were quite surprised, to say the least. It led us to the conclusion that a 50hp motor and a typical bow roller setup are not strong enough to drag 75 feet of chain taut, let alone pull on it hard enough to set a 65-pound anchor.

Over the next few weeks, we traveled around the Bahamas and began to take notice of our chain more closely. When we anchored off Rose Island northeast of Nassau, we saw our chain form a perfectly round spiral as the wild current there continued to swing us 180° every 12 hours. The winds were sometimes 18-25 knots and Kintala would travel back and forth as the current changed, the chain continuing to add to the spiral, but never straightening out. We began to rethink our anchoring strategy.


Over the next few months we gradually began to refine a new technique for us. A side note - over this time, as well, we have moved from having headsets to not having headsets (they succumbed to the harsh marine environment), to using whistles. And this brings me to point two:

When anchoring, be sure that whatever communication you choose is easy and of limited stress. Spend whatever money you have to in order to assure this. It will be the best money you spend. If you choose to use hand or whistle signals, be sure they are clearly defined beforehand.

After quite a few months, we've settle on the following technique and it's working well. So well, in fact, that when we withstood a 56 knot gust and subsequent high-40s for 5 hours at Foxtown, the anchor held well enough that the bow chock broke in spite of using a doubled snubber. Boats around us dragged, but Kintala stood her ground in the face of 5 foot waves and green water over the bow. Here is the procedure, and I'm going to use a depth of 8 feet as an example because it's the most common depth we anchor in while in the Bahamas.

First, we talk. Tim gets the anchor ready to deploy then comes back to the cockpit (since we have no more headsets) and we talk about where we might want to anchor. We drive around and look at possible spaces. We make a decision, figure the scope we need and how much rode we'll end up with, and he goes forward. From this point on we use the whistle signals we've devised. In our example, we have the 8-foot depth plus 4 feet to the bow plus 2 feet of tide = 14 feet, so our 5:1 scope (no storms predicted otherwise it would be 7:1) will be 70 feet minimum.

Next, Tim signals me that we are at the desired location. If I've done my job at the helm well, I will have coasted there and won't have to reverse much to stop the boat. He starts by laying out 25 feet of chain as I leave the boat in reverse with no power.  If there's any wind at all, the bow will swing out to one side as he lets the chain out slowly. When we're in the islands I'm usually in my bare feet and, as we back slowly, I can feel the instant the Mantus point digs in. There is a subtle change in my balance and the bow swings. We allow the idle speed to stretch the chain a bit, but not so much as to dislodge the tip. As soon as the point digs in, Tim lets out the next 25 feet, again with me slowly backing. The bow again swings out to one side, and then swings back as the chain is stretched out. At this point we do a hard set. I slowly bring the engine up to about 1800 RPM. The bow dips slightly, the chain stretches fully, and the anchor is set.

Next, Tim lets out the remaining chain of our scope, at this point about 20 feet, and again as I slowly back. The boat goes into neutral and as it rebounds slightly on the chain Tim sets the snubber. (More on our snubber below.) Boat goes back into reverse but no power and I slowly back on the snubber. Once the snubber is fully extended, I set the anchor a final time, bringing the engine slowly up to 1800 RPM again until the bow swings back forward and dips slightly.

That's the basic technique that we developed, the main difference from everything else we have read and heard being the fact that we pause at 25 feet and set the anchor twice once at 50 feet and once at the full length. We set it once in the middle of the layout because it became evident that the motor had insufficient power to fully stretch out the weight of the chain and set the anchor, leaving the anchor un-set in most instances. There are several things worth noting, though, about other anchoring scenarios in less than perfect conditions.

One, is how the procedure changes in soft mud bottoms. We see countless people come into anchorages with soft mud bottoms, drop the anchor and immediately begin to back on them at something akin to 1800 RPM. The anchor skips across the bottom and after a half dozen tries they give up saying that the anchorage sucks. We've learned that when anchoring in soft mud bottoms, we set the anchor on the bottom with about 25 feet of chain (again 8 foot depth) and then I hold our position with the engine so that no pull is on the chain. Then we sit there and look at each other and the beautiful scenery for at least five minutes. We let the weight of the anchor settle slowly through the soft mud to the harder mud below it. Then we go ahead with the technique above.

Let the anchor settle through soft muddy or silted bottoms to the harder substrate below, then set it.

The other issue is when dealing with higher winds. The higher the wind, the longer the scope, so make sure there is adequate swing room for the longer scope. We usually try to pick a spot with enough room for 7:1, anchor with 5:1, and then have room to let out more rode if needed, should a storm pop up. During the storm at Foxtown, we had 110 feet of chain deployed which was 8:1. We now have a new length of chain that's 200 ft and we would have let even more out in that blow with this chain. In harder winds, also, the wind may back us too quickly so I sometimes have to use some forward power to slow us down. If I don't do this then the anchor can skip.


A word about the snubber. We constructed a custom snubber for our boat. We used 25 feet of three strand, stretchy nylon. Tim threaded the line through  a Mantus chain hook, folded the line in half, threaded the lines through a piece of fire hose chafe guard and spliced loops on each end sufficiently large to go over our bow cleat. This one doubled snubber goes through one bow chock and over one bow cleat. Some boats do better with each end of the snubber going to two different bow chocks and cleats, but we have found that Kintala rides at anchor better with a snubber arrangement going only through one chock and onto one cleat. Every boat is different, so what works on Kintala may not be the best arrangement for your boat. What arrangement you use is not as important as the fact that you use a snubber.

Use a snubber to take the load off of the bow roller and windlass. Make it from stretchy nylon.

The last point worth mentioning from our experience is that of making sure that you have the right chain. Our chain had been replaced at one point and the owner at that time, attempting to save money, bought proof coil chain. It is the only chain that does not work in our windlass, so every time Tim tried to use the gypsy to advance the chain, it would skip. Now that we have the correct chain on there it moves swiftly and quietly. So....last point -

Don't skimp on your ground tackle. It is the single most important thing on your boat.

See the Mantus?  No? That's the way it should be!

 As a final note, we are not paid by Mantus and receive no compensation for our positive reviews, other than many peaceful night's sleep and some of the best customer service in the marine industry.

So long...farewell...we'll see you all again

On the surface it wouldn't be obvious that Fort Lauderdale has been a particularly enjoyable stay. One might think that the dink parking issue in Hollywood, the dragging anchor in Middle River, and the power boats that went out of their way to wake drag us in Middle River (with the clear intent of letting us know they didn't like us being parked there), would take the shine off a place. Yet, almost in spite of itself, Fort Lauderdale has been a good stay. Much of the credit for that goes to Friends Bill and Ann and John and Stephen. Getting to spend some time with them, catching up and telling stories, trips to various this and sundry that, nothing but solid gold. But after 12 days, a few hours at a giant marine swap meet / flea market this morning, and a visit to the heart of Fort Luaderdale's beach tourist mecca this evening, I'm feeling the need to be away from the crowds, on big water and under way. It is time for moving on.

It has been more than a month since Kintala spent a night at a dock, but we are in the Fort Lauderdale Marina tonight. This afternoon we stowed the dink and motor, heaved the anchor out of the mud of Middle River, and passed through one of the two bridges between us and the ocean. This gives us a head start on tomorrow's plan for an easy jump to Miami. The afternoon and evening at the pier let us get the usual time-to-go boat-stuff done. One of those was a pump-out. Florida in general, and Fort Lauderdale in particular, are all about their clear and clean waters, something that I am in total agreement with. But the most convenient pump-out for our departure was priced at $40. The pump out boat would have been glad to visit us in Middle River for $75. Demanding some long green for boaters to be green seems a bit disingenuous. (There is a free pump out, but it is located 2 miles off the ICW and out of the way for boats coming and going from the ocean.)

The marina facilities are neither bad nor great, but the price for this little bit of "average" is anything but. They charge a lot and the staff gives off a very heavy vibe of not being the least bit interested in much of anything, particularly anything that has to do with a cruising sailboat or its crew. (My guess is the owner of the mega yacht parked next door has a completely different experience with the staff.) Still, the Middle River anchorage with its easy dink access right at a very nice city park, has been one of our favorite in-a-city stops. Had we been able to find a place in the middle of the anchorage the power boat near hits would have been a non-issue. All in all this has been a good couple of weeks, and we will surely come this way again.

What makes a good anchorage

(ed note: these are my opinions - Tim will have to list his own.)
 
One thing that we have been learning a lot about on this trip down the ICW is anchorages. There are many of them for smaller, shallower draft boats, but few and far between for boats of our size and draft. Considering the average water depth, wind and current that we've anchored in, we need anywhere from a 150-250' swing circle, and there just aren't that many around.We have had a few really amazing anchorages, and we have had a few that I literally couldn't wait to get out of. So this got me to thinking about what makes a good anchorage.

Like everything else on a boat, anchorages involve compromise. An anchorage is good either because it's beautiful, or because it's protected from the wind and/or current, or because it's deep enough, because it's  interesting (historical site, museum, etc), or because the services (stores, trash, laundry, etc) are easily accessible and affordable. Every anchorage we've been in has had some factor of at least one of these, and the few really great ones had all of them.

Anchorage number one in my mind is Wrightsville Beach. It's absolutely gorgeous, and while the protection from wind and current isn't great, the water is deep and the holding is excellent so it's not a factor. There is a free dinghy dock, a very reasonably priced grocery store, ice cream stores, and the beach is one block from the dinghy dock. One of my most loved features? You can hear the surf from the anchorage through the open V-berth hatch at night.

Runners  up:

Magothy River - this was our first anchorage so that weights it. It was private, completely protected from wind in any direction, good depth, and stunningly beautiful. No services.

Styron Creek was the most picturesque of all of them. Holding, protection, depth, were all good. Services were non-existent but you don't go to that type of anchorage for services.

The absolutely worst, can't wait to get out of there, didn't sleep all night anchorage was the oxbow near Enterprise Landing. It was creepy, desolate swampland and I kept waiting for the Deliverance music to start.

Runner up was Taylor Creek in Beaufort. We found it to be cluttered with abandoned boats, private mooring balls, and daymarks that made it nearly impossible to find a spot.

The Charleston anchorage wasn't much better. Completely exposed and they charge you a ridiculous amount of money to land the dink and make you walk a mile to get the sticker and then walk back to put in on the dink before you walk to town.

The gems you look for are anchorages that have free dinghy docks, ice cream and laundry close by (get ice cream while waiting for laundry), free or reduced fee buses, or historical sites.

So do you have any favorites?